My work is a visual dialogue between abstraction and representation. I borrow from the broad vocabulary of contemporary painting, blending geometric shapes, vivid hues, brush marks, and stains with a host of social and environmental concerns seen through flashes of representational elements. I include images such as surveillance cameras, fragments of bodies, the wreckage left behind after natural disasters, military aircraft, and birds in flight. Other references include comic books, Japanese woodblock prints, and camouflage patterns. Endangered species are a recurring theme in my work. I want to depict how our increasingly chaotic, artificial environment is becoming inhospitable to life.  Kara Maria

In a single canvas, Kara Maria skips from geometric shapes and well-defined forms to exuberant swirls and vibrant splotches of color. Like a channel surfer, she bounces from one thing to the next, no one gesture or mark being privileged over the other. She carefully builds her canvases, borrowing, reinventing and arranging seemingly unrelated forms and colors. Maria has characterized her paintings as collage-like, ambiguously retro and cheerfully apocalyptic.  Kelly Lindner, Director, University Art Gallery, California State University, Chico

Kara Maria received her BA and MFA from UC Berkeley. Her work is held in numerous permanent collections, including those of the Crocker Art Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and Nevada Museum of Art. She is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery.

The exhibit is located in a space also used for events; please call (510) 643-9670 or email in advance to confirm room availability.